


Your eyes have always said, for now

by Irrelevancy



Series: A Well-Stocked Armory of Bitchy Remarks [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Captive Prince Fusion, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Assassination Plot(s), Boot Worship, Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Coercion, Intrigue, Kinktober 2019, M/M, Multi, Nobody says what they mean, Revenge, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 14:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20875895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrelevancy/pseuds/Irrelevancy
Summary: “Kneel.”It was hardly the first time this cocky, demanding, and downright obnoxious little princeling's ordered Marco to kneel.Captive Prince AU, where Marco is Damen, Sabo is Laurent, and Ace is, unfortunately, kind of Auguste.





	Your eyes have always said, for now

**Author's Note:**

> I've cheated a bit and tagged this MAS; that's endgame, but this is only the Kinktober fill for boot worship ^^" This is all Marco/Sabo onscreen with the usual Sabo/Ace pining, sorry to be misleading.
> 
> This is technically finished, so when I write the next parts I'll make it part of a series.
> 
> CW: not as dark as Captive Prince, but really, the standard court intrigue stuff: assassination plots, intrigue for the throne, degrading language, etc.
> 
> Bless your hearts [Penny](https://thepettydreadfuls.tumblr.com/) and [Lucky](https://midnightluck.tumblr.com/), if I could take out a radio ad to thank you for your support I would.

“Kneel.”

It was hardly the first time this cocky, demanding, and downright obnoxious little princeling's ordered Marco to kneel. This wasn't even the first time Marco's called Sabo all sorts of nasty adjectives in his head (a fact that was, he's been assured, readily telegraphed through the quality of his glare).

But this was the first time obeisance meant saving Sabo's life, rather than Marco's.

Oh, he kneeled. There was never any doubt in Marco's mind that it was the right thing to do. For all that he's imagined the just and warranted murder of one Crown Prince Sabo, Marco didn't want it happening at the hands of the Regent and Sabo's unpleasant brother.

(He'd much rather, after all, have it happen at his own hands.)

“See?” Sabo lilted, once Marco was at his feet. The cold marble of the prince's greeting chamber was hard beneath Marco's knees. “Tame as a mutt.”

“You must understand we mean no insult.” However polite the actual words, the Regent's perpetual sneer and general demeanor assured everybody present that he in no way meant any politeness. “You've certainly proved yourself the master at getting the bitch to heel, but this now concerns the safety of everybody else in the palace.”

“And I've told you,” Sabo replied coolly, “and you, Stelly, and every courier out there simpering after your coattails that my slave didn't do it. Shall I speak to the Minister of Education about failing rates of basic language comprehension in this country?”

Keeping his eyes on Sabo's shins, clad in fine dark blue linen that lightly wrinkled where they crossed, Marco bit back a smirk. The prince's wit was certainly a grand sport to witness when it wasn't turned on Marco, in the way that one might stare in awe at the sight of a wild jaguar ripping apart its prey.

“Nobody's been able to account for your barbarian slave's whereabouts on the night of the attack,” Stelly hissed, his whole body shaking in a way that telegraphed his habit of stomping his feet when something wasn't going his way. No one in the room looked impressed.

“Nobody but me,” Sabo countered, before flashing that saccharine, poisonous smile. “Don't you trust your older brother, Stelly?”

“Only about as far as I can throw you.”

Before he knew it, Marco's eyes were rolling up in doleful derision of what was definitely meant as a zinger on Stelly's part. Instead, all Marco wanted to say was an unflattering comment about royal noodle arms. Sabo, apparently, happened to look down at the same time, and the result was a trade of glances that seemed—god forbid—amicable, even conspiring.

It was a gesture both the Regent and Stelly caught, and while Stelly busied himself with going red-faced with affront, the Regent cackled.

“Oh, I'm starting to believe you really have tamed it.” Even before ascending to the Regency, Donquixote Doflamingo had been a haughty, ambitious man with boorish manners. Though his eyes were perpetually hidden behind darkened glass, Marco was still unnerved by the sensation of his gaze raking down Marco's body. “What a scintillating image.”

Marco kept himself as still as the stone walls of the cold, foreign palace. Any motion from him now, he knew, would end in drawn blood, his or the Regent's.

“Keep it in your pants,” Sabo drawled. He kicked one foot more clearly over the other, leather boots creaking. “Now is there anything else, or did you want to keep speculating on my sex life?”

“Disgusting,” Stelly spat, “lying with a mongrel of Whitebeard's barbarian country.”

If Marco were to wreak havoc on the room, it would seem cowardly to go for the most obviously impotent enemy. But the moment Prince Stelly insulted the name of Marco's king-father was the moment he sealed his fate—death, with no chance of recourse. Marco could slit his throat first, and maybe then Sabo would be grateful enough to sit aside and let Marco have a fair try at the Regent.

“Actually, let's pry a little further,” the Regent grinned salaciously. “We'd be a lot more inclined to believe that the slave was with you the night of the attack if you told us what you were doing.”

His boot hit the ground, and Sabo scoffed, loud and scathing.

“Well this might be possible for someone without a backbone like Stelly there, but my cock certainly doesn't suck itself.”

After Marco's disposed of Doflamingo, he'd throw the locks on all the doors and challenge Sabo to a full and proper duel. Then he'd systematically parry every attack, counterattack; he'd let Sabo gain the upper ground then yank it out from right under his princely feet; he'd disarm and overtake Sabo with such certain superior strength. He'd leave Sabo feeling as goddamn _helpless_ and _humiliated_ as he's felt in these past two months of captivity.

“No offense,” said the Regent, “but you'd have us believe that this barbarian slave of the New Western Governance, this slave who defeated the reigning champion of the coliseum, whom you had whipped nearly to death for—how did you put this—_taking liberties_ when bathing you... You'd have us believe you have him tamed enough to take you in his mouth?”

“Has he bitten off any important bits yet?” was Stelly's brilliant contribution to the conversation.

Marco could see this going in a million and one ways, each worse than the last. He had to gain some control over the situation, before Sabo did something insane and awful like offer Stelly a try.

So Marco, forcing the unfurling of his spine (and all the scar tissue bunched up on his skin over it), leaned down and pressed his lips to the top of Sabo's left boot.

Whatever barbed comment was poised on Sabo's tongue died away with an unwitting inhale. It was a short, quiet sound that only Marco could hear, but it was enough of a victory for Marco, who could so rarely catch Sabo's conniving mind by surprise. The boots, he knew, were clean, because he had just been polishing them up that morning at Sabo's lazy order. Back home, Marco had, on occasion, polished his own boots before—mostly when he had a serious meeting with important merchants and such right after coming home from a hunting trip. The motions weren't unfamiliar, and might've even been soothing, had they not been at his enemy prince's careless caprice.

But now, Marco was glad he had done it. The scent of the polishing oil was something solacing, and if Marco closed his eyes, he could imagine himself back in the prince's bedchamber. It was, ironically, the place Marco's found most comforting in the cold dark palace of this cold dark kingdom, probably because he was simply left alone in there so often. Outside, people either stared or deliberately not stared, Marco's body marked twicefold by first, the crest of Whitebeard on his chest, and second, the scars of Sabo's whip on his back. Marco refused to be ashamed of either, but sometimes, it was just nicer to not contend with the scrutiny. He could imagine being in that walled room now, just him and the boots, the fragrance of clean leather.

It made it easier, when Sabo crossed his legs again, to cup his right shoe now by the ankle. To angle his head out as he opened his mouth, so the Regent and Stelly could get a clear, undeniable view of his tongue flattening against the boot, pressing into the material, and stroking up the small protrusion where leather outlined bone.

“Like I said,” Sabo said delicately. “The slave was fully occupied on the night of the attack. If your voyeuristic perversions have been satisfied, I'd very much like to return to my bedchambers now. You did interrupt something earlier.”

That something was a series of grilling questions about NWG trade partnerships with Amazon Lily, but Marco wasn't about to lift his head and contradict Sabo.

“Spreading for the enemy.” Then Stelly said the fateful words: “Guess you've really gotten over that general of yours.”

The room went absolutely, deadly cold, and Marco lifted his head.

“What's the point of being royalty if I can't even enjoy myself?” Sabo uttered, his gaze beatific as he steepled his fingers, the picture of indulgent elegance. Like the veins in the marble, there must be ice coursing through Sabo, to say a thing like that. “You've both taught me that.”

“Brothers, am I right?” the Regent sighed with a shake of his head. Marco remembered that Doflamingo infamously executed his own brother for defying his Regency. “I really ought to learn from you, my Prince. There've been many evenings when I've wished I could so easily forget.”

In a blur of black, Sabo kicked a foot over the back of Marco's neck, and pushed _down_. Marco's left cheek struck the marble hard, and his immediate instinct to push himself back up was thwarted by Sabo's foot staying where it was—stepping on Marco, keeping him on the ground. Marco clenched his fist, hard, and fought the tremendous urge to strangle this dreadful, _wretched_ excuse of a man.

“Send for your little toy soldier then,” Sabo dismissed with a nasty smirk, “you've trained him well in fucking.”

With that, the Regent's expression soured, and he turned on his heel to leave. Stelly, truly spineless, scampered after him, letting the heavy double doors slam shut behind them.

Reaching up, Marco immediately tore Sabo's foot off his neck and surged up to his feet, teeth gritted hard.

“Are you fucking done, yoi—”

With steely eyes and a haunted baring of teeth, Sabo fisted Marco's collar and _yanked_, until they were nose-to-nose.

“Who do you think you are, speaking to me like that?” The query was just as disingenuous as the manners, the gilt, the vicious _lies_ of this court. “A common soldier of the enemy kingdom, beaten and enslaved, with not a belli to your name. Well—” A humorless incline of his golden head, crownlet fire-orange in the candlelight. “—I say that. If only you could cash in on that prince's name you share, hm? Buy your freedom.”

Marco glared back, but said nothing. There was too much of him right now chomping at the bit, dying to snarl in Sabo's smug face, _that's _my_ name yoi. Nothing shared. I am that prince, and the moment I find my way out and get my hands on a sword, you and your entire tainted dynasty are through._

“Marco.” Sabo was saying the name of the Newgate heir, presumed dead for months, yet he was looking right into this Marco, enslaved rank-and-file soldier Marco's eyes when he said it. “What do your people call him?”

“The Phoenix,” Marco answered reluctantly at the insistent shake of Sabo's grip.

“So fanciful,” Sabo tsked. “You barbarians and your mythos. See here in Goa, we like to assign proper names, names that reflect a person's deeds. Do you know what we call him, here in my country?”

Of course Marco knew. He'd been there at the Paramount War after all, the key battle of Marineford and all the victorious skirmishes thereafter. He'd been the one seen with the corpse of that great enemy general, Portgas D. Ace. He'd been the one _called—_

“Prince-killer,” Sabo said. Then he released Marco with a little shove. “What an honor. I'm honestly surprised your people and your warmongering natures haven't embraced it more.”

“You know, I heard they called that general the prince because he was better suited to rule than either of the true princes,” Marco snapped before he could think better of it. Sabo's gaze, when it met Marco's _burned_.

“There's enough truth in that, I suppose.” Slowly, Sabo stood from his chair. Marco didn't mean to give ground, but before he knew it he had taken just the smallest half-step back. The Crown Prince, Marco realized, was _furious, _and he's become a falling icicle, eager to impale. “Certainly worked out well enough for the heir to the throne, hm? Perhaps you think I ought to thank your Phoenix Prince.”

“I'll pass along your gratitude when I get home yoi,” Marco bit out.

“That's the spirit.” Sabo brought one hand up, knuckles and the royal signet ring tapping teasingly at Marco's cheek. Marco wouldn't flinch. “I've always found it funny, this sentiment people have for home, always missing it and defining themselves by it.” _That's because you don't have a heart to miss things with, yoi._ “And then when people don't make it home, there are those who get so terribly upset, even if what would've come back was just a charred and gouged-empty corpse.”

That great intuition that Pops always praised Marco for, the one with nearly preternatural ability to see through and understand the heart of a matter, suddenly pinged, a clear ringing sound like the drip of water off thawing ice. _But maybe_, Marco thought with great reluctance, _you once did._

“Awfully barbaric, don't you think, to not return somebody's body after killing them?”

_Maybe you lie and lie and lie, until your smokescreen's thick as steel and the most important truth of all is completely concealed. But that's how I've figured you out. You don't have a perfect mask._

“Your prince is an enemy of my people, Marco, and we'll have our revenge.”

_I think you were in love with Ace._

Then: _Oh god, and he believes Ace is dead._

Sabo hit him, but only barely. The ring hardly stung on his face. In his knowledge of Sabo's expressions, ranging from _casually cruel smirk_ to _genuinely cruel smirk_ to calculating blankness, Marco didn't think he's ever seen the one Sabo sported now. It might mirror Marco's own, the face of realization. Marco's realized something, and Sabo's realized that Marco's realized something. This was the expression of a man having just lost a piece on the game board to an opponent he expected to beat with his hands tied behind his back.

So, as many men were wont to do when put off like this, Sabo pushed back.

“When I find Marco the Prince-killer,” he announced, nails digging into Marco's chin as he held Marco in place. “I'm going to kill him. Not so quickly of course—an example must be made of him first, for daring to hurt our kingdom. I will ruin him, I will _desecrate_ him, and then I will kill him. But—” Of all the cold, empty things in Goa (and there were too many to count), the one that Marco hated most was the Crown Prince's smile. What a bitter aftertaste it must leave on that sharp, frozen tongue. “—before I find him, you'll do in the meantime, won't you?

**Author's Note:**

> ...Yes, Sabo absolutely did insinuate that he's fucked Law.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](https://touchmycoat.tumblr.com/), I have a [kinktober tag](https://touchmycoat.tumblr.com/tagged/kinktober-2019)!


End file.
